


Some Ruin Called Love

by alamorn



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, Politics, Threesome - F/M/M, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:00:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24514252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: Yennefer is sent to Kerack instead of Aedirn.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 71
Kudos: 270
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020, Polyamorous Relationships For the Win





	Some Ruin Called Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anticyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/gifts).



> All of the information about Kerack was taken from the wiki or entirely made up by me. The timeline has been massaged.
> 
> anticyclone -- this might not be what you had in mind for Jaskier and Yennefer and politics but I hope you like it anyway! Happy Fandom5k!

Tissaia had apologized when she'd given Yennefer the assignment.  _ Apologized. _ Tissaia had never apologized for anything, not for buying Yennefer for four bits, not for turning her friends to eels, not for using her and humiliating her, and working her so hard that Yennefer had thought she would die. But when she told Yennefer she had Kerack, she'd turned her head so she wasn't looking directly at Yennefer and she'd said, "I argued for Aedirn. I was outvoted. I'm sorry."

That had been enough to sink Yennefer's stomach, but stepping off the boat into Kerack was something else entirely. It was a new country, only a step removed from its piratical past, and the docks looked it. None of the glitter of a proper country, the streets were wood planks half-sunk in mud, and there were more than a few ships at dock flying no colors. There was no doubt in her mind that a pirate's flag was folded and waiting in each captain's quarters.

It was the barest nod towards civilization and she fought not to grimace. Instead she followed her guide to a carriage, gilded and overblown in the way of pirates. It dripped with gold, but when she pushed her nail against the inlay, it was too hard to be true. "Of course," she muttered, and turned to her guide.

He was one of the princes, a younger son, and unlikely to become the heir. A scar dragged half of his face down and despite his rich clothing, he looked every inch the pirate his father was. "Tell me about Kerack," she said, bestowing a smile on him that felt stiff and false. "I know what I've read, of course, but words on a page can never communicate the true beauty of a place."

\--

If there was beauty in Kerack, it was not at the court. Perhaps it was in Brokilon Forest, protected by the dryads, but Kerack's loggers would strip any that they could find.

There was none of the glitter and pomp of Aedirn, none of the power of Temeria. She'd never been to Skellige, not yet, but she suspected Kerack didn't match up even to the islands, which at least had a sort of harsh beauty. Skelligers would brag about Skellige. Before entering Kerack, she'd not met a single person proud to be from Kerack.

The palace overlooked the harbor, though it was less a palace and more a walled keep with delusions of grandeur. Before the pirates had created the city, it had been a lighthouse, and then a fortress, guarded on one side by a cliff, on the other by a five foot thick stone wall. It had been built by people who expected others to try and take it, and the impression remained as one penetrated past the first gate. There was a second wall, slighter but taller, twenty feet back, and then when one passed that there was a killing yard. Past that, when the prince brought her into the palace proper, Yennefer pasted a smile on her face and kept it there with more strain than she liked to admit.

Calling it a palace was almost an insult. It centered on the old lighthouse, which was still the highest point in the whole mess, and the palace had been built out in a spiral from that center. It was rather like a conch shell in that way. The walls were thick, the ventilation poor, the tapestries and art gaudy, and when Yennefer reached the throne room, the throne itself was encrusted with shells and jewels.

She dipped a bow, exactly to the depth she'd been taught and no deeper. "King Osmyck," she said. "What a pleasure to finally meet you."

He hadn't attended the ball where kings bid for new court mages, and she'd been sent anyway. It was an insult, though she wasn't sure he knew that. Wasn't sure he would care. Did they understand this sort of thing in Kerack, or did they think it was only an insult if it ended with blood?

"Yennefer of Vengerberg," he said, dipping his head in greeting. He wore an  _ eye patch _ , a beaded eye embroidered onto it. What a  _ cliché _ , she could hardly stand it. "We welcome you to our court. I hear you're good with storms."

"I'm good with everything," she told him, tried to keep her tone even and appealing instead of letting her wounded pride through. Never show weakness. Tissaia had taught her that lesson well.

\--

They set her to work quickly, and it was none of the glamour she'd wanted. She'd wanted, in Aedirn, to ride through Vengerberg, show them how far she had risen from the girl they'd treated so cruelly. She'd wanted to see them all still stuck in the mud. In Kerack, the mud had made its way into the court; it stuck to her skirts when she went to hilltops to soothe or call storms. The pirates stunk of salt-water, and after only a week, so did she, her hair stiff with it. 

The spying Osmyck set her to was desultory; mostly, it was limited to learning shipping routes, and peering into the depths of Brokilon Forest. Pirates, it turned out, had a strangely democratic way of dealing with things, and that had disembarked with them. Once a month, Osmyck opened his court to grievances, gathered in each town and province and presented by the barons. Then he either addressed them or ignored them. Rarely, he retaliated. 

It wasn't that things ran smoothly, but Yennefer was bored. She found herself looking forward to border skirmishes, for the change in pace. And so time passed, years melding into each other in a slog of boredom. She watched without interest as Prince Belohun began to prepare to be king. 

\--

She'd been in Kerack for fifteen tedious years before something interesting happened.

A song, so insulting and so catchy that Yennefer was surprised the bard wasn't dragged in front of the court and executed. Or keel-hauled, since Kerack was not so far from shipboard justice as it pretended. She even found herself humming it in front of Osmyck, which seemed likely to lose her her job. They had not taught her, at Aretuza, to insult her client's manhood. But the line about the snapped mast wouldn't leave her, no matter how furious Osmyck looked whenever he heard snatches of the tune. And besides, he had only a few years left in him before he stepped down or died. She wasn't certain Belohun hadn't commissioned the piece in order to hurry the process along.

When the bard finally was dragged in front of the court, it was by his cousin, one of the court retinue who wanted a position but didn’t have a title or lands of his own, who had him by the ear. Osmyck looked at him and sighed, and Yennefer didn't understand what was going on until he said, "Julian, if you weren't blood, I'd have to kill you. I'm still thinking about it."

The bard -- and Yennefer wasn't good at ages, as she'd stopped paying attention when  _ she'd _ stopped aging, but he looked young -- whistled a few bars, a poorly feigned look of innocence on his face. His cousin shook him. Slowly, with the effort of a boring and unpleasant task, Yennefer began to put things together. 

"Sorceress," Osmyck said, as Yennefer stared, narrow-eyed, at the youngest Viscount in Kerack, "you wouldn't happen to be able to silence my nephew, would you?"

Julian Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, was not truly the king's nephew, but some sort of cousin once-removed. The entire court was cousins, or blood-brothers, or had served on this ship or that together and therefore considered themselves family of one sort or another. Yennefer would have needed a map to track the relationships, and did not care enough about her position to create one. She'd already picked up entirely too much, over the years she'd been here.

But this, at last, was interesting, or at least  _ fun _ . Storms were boring, which was not the same as easy. Silence was easy, which was not the same as boring. She rose from her seat and approached Julian. When he tried to greet her, his cousin shook him once more by the ear.

"I could silence him, Your Grace," she said, "but I could not guarantee he would ever speak again." It wasn't true, but she wanted to see if he would squawk. He did.

"If you take my tongue permanently -- hey,  _ ow _ \--" he said, grabbing his cousin's wrist and wrenching it down so he didn't have to stand on tip-toe, "my mother will be  _ very _ displeased with you."

"If I cut her taxes, I think she'd forgive me," Osmyck said, but Julian had chosen his target well, or worked his charm beforehand; the king was more amused than angry. "Silence him for a week, mage, it would do him good."

"As you will, Your Grace," she said, casting the magic with a flick of her fingers. It sparked on his tongue, and he immediately started trying to complain. His uncle had been right; it was amusing to watch his mouth move and nothing come out. Yennefer couldn't hold back her smile. The first interesting thing to happen at court, and now he had a grudge against her. Oh, this would be  _ fun _ .

\--

Viscount Julian was too creative to be well-restrained by the loss of his voice. He followed her with his lute, giving her days a backdrop of music, pointed and farcical. And it was almost impossible to keep herself from talking to him, when he was there and couldn't respond, except through trills on his lute.

"You don't look like much of a pirate," she told him, when he slid into her office before she could slam the door in his face.

He shrugged, played a scale.

"You might as well take a seat," she said, moving to her desk to sort through the requests that had come in. A storm was gathering in the west, out over open water, which the whale hunters wanted dealt with -- it was going to disrupt the beginning of the season. There was a drought near Brokilon, and the dryads kept killing farmers when they tried to use the forest's rivers for irrigation. Several of the court ladies wanted their dresses enchanted before the coming ball -- Osmyck's youngest daughter was coming of age and it was going to be the social event of the year. Osmyck suspected assassins, and wanted her spying on both rivals and allies. It wasn't even encoded -- he wanted those he suspected to know he did, and that he was so confident in his mage that he didn't need subtlety. She'd thought she would like court intrigue, but it turned out to be tedious.

She leafed through each page, scowled at each, and dropped them to her desk. "You," she said, "what possessed you to write and perform, oh, what was it called," she spun her finger in a circle, trying to spool the thought into coherency as the Viscount began to pluck out the tune. Damn, it would be stuck in her head for the next week again. "Ah, yes,  _ The Broken Oar _ . You didn't think he'd keelhauled anyone recently enough?"

Yennefer sat at her desk, dropped her chin into her hand, and watched as Julian tried to speak. He did so with great animation, never minding that no sound came out. It would be easy to undo the spell and release his tongue, but this amused her more, and there was so little that amused her in Kerack.

Julian scowled at her and turned to charades, which did nothing to clarify his meaning.

"It's good you don't mind looking a fool," she said, as he puffed out his cheeks and mimed strangling himself. Instantly, he threw his hands down to his sides and settled into a sulk. He stayed in that pose of petulance for a moment before snatching up his lute and strumming discordantly on it, as if to punish her.

"I could take your hands as well," she said, and he scowled, put down his lute, and crossed his arms. He didn't get up to leave, so he had some of that foolhardy piratical bravery, if none of a seaman's sense.

"So you're a high ranking idiot," she said, eyeing him in his blue silks and foppish hair, "but not the same sort of idiot as the rest of your kin. Clearly you have no intention of staying at court, or you wouldn't try so hard to get yourself kicked out. Your title must have been hereditary, because no one in their right mind would  _ give _ you a position higher than court fool. Why not just leave?" He stared at her, eyebrows up. "Would they pursue you?" she asked, and he clicked his tongue and pointed at her. "Have you no heir?" He seesawed a hand. "A younger brother, then. Several, making succession messy?" He nodded, a smirk growing across his face. Yennefer rose from her seat, circled the desk and leaned against the edge closest to him. Her office was not large, and this left them close enough that she could have reached out and touched him, if she wanted. "So, you think getting yourself exiled is the solution." He laughed silently, looking delighted.

She thought, tapping her lips with her forefinger. Exile, at this juncture, sounded appealing. She'd been in Kerack for fifteen years, and grew to hate it more with each passing day. And this man, fool that he was, was also the first thing that had stirred any sense of amusement since she left Aretuza. "You won't make it far, if your only skill is angering those in power. If you appealed to my mercy, I might come with you."

His eyebrows shot up and he leaned forward, mouth opening in a clear  _ what _ before he remembered his spelled silence. He scowled, circled a finger around his mouth, and she rolled her eyes, twitched her fingers. "Keep your voice down, I doubt your uncle would like to hear what either of us are saying," she said, and returned to him his tongue.

"You want me to take you with me?" he asked, incredulous. 

"Which of us is the mage, and which the nuisance?" she said, tilting her head in a parody of curiosity.

"No, the question is, which of us has a  _ plan _ , and the answer is very much me. Why would you want to come? You have glamour and money and the ear of a king, none of which will be on the road."

"Much the same reason as you, I think," she said. "I'm bored, and taken for granted, and my power means nothing when I use it for others."

"Well, you lost me on the last bit," he said. "I don't think a catchy tune and summoning storms are exactly equivalent."

She leaned forward, watched his eyes dip briefly to her neckline and then back to her eyes, as instinct and knowledge of danger warred within him. "I'm bored, Lord Pankratz. I'll be leaving with or without you."

He hesitated a long moment, then stuck out his hand for her to shake. "If we're to do this, you have to call me Jaskier. I told them I would make a terrible Viscount, and it's their own fault they didn't listen."

She shook his hand, made a note of the soft palms, the calloused fingertips. "Why on earth would you name yourself after a weed?"

"They're pretty, and they grow everywhere, like my songs," he said, leaning back in his chair once more. "So. Do you want to hear the plan?"

"I assume it's awful, but yes," she said.

It was awful, but it was more than she'd had, so she bit back her harshest judgements. It was not much more than she'd guessed; he planned to annoy Osmyck until he was exiled, and upon his exile take to the road to become a traveling troubadour, seeking out adventure and glory. 

When he was done spinning silver, she took his voice once more with a wave of her hand. "If you get exiled, you'll never be able to come home," she said. "Give me some time to come up with something else. Something where you can maintain your standing, if you ever need it."

He scowled and rolled his eyes, but eventually, he nodded.

\--

The day after she returned Jaskier's voice, he hunted her down in her office, late at night, after a long day at court. "What can you do, actually? I assume more than all the --" He waved a hand vaguely in an insulting mimicry of casting, "or you wouldn't be so bored. Can you do portals? That would make traveling easier."

She flicked a finger, closing the door behind him. "I can do portals, yes," she said. "But it's not easy; if we can use horses, we should."

"I thought you hated easy," he said, with that reckless smile that she was certain she shouldn't enjoy as much as she did.

"I do," she said, "but I also hate wasted effort. If a horse can get us away, we'll use a horse."

"Well, if you're going to take all the fun out of it," Jaskier said. "So, I've been thinking -- we need an excuse to spend a lot of time together. Plotting, and so forth. I flatter myself that I'm known as a bit of ladies man. Perhaps we could fake an affair?"

Yennefer's eyebrows shot up. He certainly didn't lack nerve. "They would believe you would pursue me after I was the agent of your punishment?"

"Oh, especially," Jaskier said. "You may have noticed, but I have an adventurous heart."

"Is that what you call it?" she asked. Gods help her, she liked the little fool. Before he could defend his honor, she plowed forward. "Fine."

"Fine?" he said, clearly a little shocked. Did he often ask for things when he expected to be told no? Of course he did -- it was a silly question.

"You'll have to seduce me, of course," she said. "I look forward to seeing your efforts."

\--

His efforts, it turned out, were better than she expected. He pursued her with a sort of single minded determination. Flowers flooded her rooms. She was followed everywhere by love songs. When he asked her to the ball, it was almost a disappointment. She'd half expected him to ask her to the moon.

As it was, she acquiesced. 

\--

Yennefer, as the court mage, was responsible for making the ball magical. She'd enchanted a dozen gowns for high ranking members of the court and brought the ballroom to a shimmering ethereality. It looked almost as lovely as the court of a kingdom a dozen times Kerack's size. Despite herself, -- this was entirely a waste of her talents -- Yennefer was proud. She stayed through the set up long enough to see servants bring in tables of food and the bards to run their scales, and then she went to dress herself.

Her gown was black and white, as all were, but she'd taken special care when she'd ordered it. She knew what many of the other women were wearing, and she did not want to be one of a crowd. It was almost entirely black, a wool so fine it was soft. The skirt swept the floor, with plenty of room to move, in case she was called suddenly to turn back a Skelligan fleet. The bodice was almost masculine, save for the white darts that drew attention to the smallness of her waist. In it, she was strikingly different from any of the other women, who were dressed purely ornamentally. They were all beautiful, of course. But Yennefer looked both beautiful and dangerous.

She waited for Jaskier to come to her door, adding and subtracting jewelry as she waited. Her lips were painted red, her eyes swept with shadow, and she wasn't sure if earrings added to the look or distracted, so she tried on pair after pair while she waited. When he knocked, she took them off once more, then rose, slowly, giving herself one last measuring glance in the mirror before she went to let him in.

Jaskier always dressed well, for a certain value of  _ well _ . He always dressed richly, though often without taste. This evening, he'd chosen to match her, in black and white silk. The black washed him out a little, enough that she understood why he generally avoided it, but it gave him a gravitas that lasted until he beamed at her.

"My lady," he said, with a sweeping bow, grinning up at her.

"You'll strain something," she said, sweeping past him. He hurried after her, and she allowed him to take her arm. The silk of his doublet was smooth under her palm. 

"Excuse  _ you _ ," he said. "I keep myself well trained. I can bow or jig on a moment's notice and never strain a thing. I only hope you can keep up with me on the dance floor."

"What will you wager?" she asked, sly and half-flirtatious.

She could see in his eyes when he decided to plunge fully in. His lashes dropped and he smirked sidelong. Though he was a head taller than her, it almost felt like he was looking up at her. "First to retreat owes the other a helping hand?" He twiddled his fingers to illustrate his point, and she noticed how long they were, not for the first time.

"Agreed," she said, without even a hesitation to make him eager. She had always been greedy, and she wanted his hands on her more than she wanted to make him beg.

When they swept into the ballroom, Jaskier paused to get his bearings. His eyes went first to the bards, playing at the other end of the hall. 

"Perhaps King Osmyck would have asked you to play if your most famous song was not quite so rude," she said, tugging him into motion.

The mage-lights she'd hung sparkled like stars and, filled with dancing bodies, the space was entirely transformed. Even the scent of the sea, usually ubiquitous in court, was gone, covered with perfume and sweat and the heavy aroma of the banquet tables. Even Yennefer was impressed at her own work.

Jaskier took a moment to be hurried, not quite strong enough to resist her, but enough bigger than her that the urging was an actual effort. "I'll play at greater courts than this," he said loftily. "They'll know my name across the Northern Realms."

"Which one?" she asked, pulling him to the dance floor. They moved into the steps of the dance easily, and he was an excellent partner. "Lord Julian Pankratz would make quite a stir, if executed."

"For  _ that _ ," he said, whirling her into a spin and pulling her back in so her back pressed to his chest and her skirts wrapped around his legs, "I'm dedicating something to you. Something about  _ snot _ ."

When he whirled her back out to get them back into starting position, she said, "I look forward to hearing it from you and only you." When he scowled at her, she twisted the knife. "Because no one else will ever sing it."

"I understood, you demon," he snapped.

They danced and danced, occasionally switching partners but always coming back together until Jaskier waved off a woman in a deep red dress, the neckline dipping low as propriety allowed, and went for the banquet table. Yennefer followed him, a smug smile pulling at her lips as he drank deeply from the mulled wine.

"I believe you owe me something," she said.

The delightful thing about Jaskier was that he was impossible to embarrass. He finished his wine quickly, wiping a trickle away from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and when he looked at her, his eyes were dark and filled with promise. She wasn't certain he hadn't lost on purpose.

Though they didn't speak aloud, they turned together and left the ballroom, wending their way through the spiraling hallways until they found an empty room, furniture ghostly in slip-covers. Jaskier pressed her back against the door, kissing her thoroughly, and it felt less like a culmination than a next step. The road still spooled out before them. And then his clever hands were drawing up her fine wool skirts and she thought no more of roads or steps.

Under her dress, she wore a slip and stockings and a garter belt, with nothing between her legs. When his questing hand reached the top of her stocking, plucked at the strap of the garter belt, and slid further up to discover nothing but hot skin and coarse hair, Jaskier pulled away from her lips with a bitten off, " _ Gods _ ," and dropped his forehead against her temple.

She spread her legs a little further, seized his wrist where it disappeared in a froth of skirts and moved it to press home. " _ Gods," _ he whispered again, drawing his longest finger the length of her slit. She was wet already, had been getting wetter and wetter as they danced, wet enough that his callouses slid without catching at her tender flesh.

When he started to talk, she sank her nails into the back of his neck. "For once in your life," she said into his ear, " _ focus _ ."

He chuckled and did as he was told, sucking at her neck and the corner of her jaw as he gathered her wetness on his fingers and rubbed, slowly at first, then faster and faster, at her clit. When her legs started to shake, his free arm went around her waist, supporting her, and when she came, her eyes were wide open.

He leaned against her, breathing just a little heavily, and she could feel his erection against her hip, but he had chosen to lose their challenge, and she didn't reward failure, so she didn't offer to help. She tapped his chest and he stepped back, letting her skirts fall back to the floor, and slid his fingers in his mouth. She arched her eyebrows at him and he raised his back to her. When he slid them out with a pop, he said, "I like to know I've done a good job," with a cheeky grin.

"It was adequate," she said, and straightened her slip.

"Someday," he said, "I'll get you so worked up you won't be able to pretend."

She slid her arm in his as they headed back to the ball. "Promises, promises."

After that, it just seemed easier to actually have an affair than to fake one. Their pillow talk included plans for how to get horses, their assignations worked out the best roads to take without being spotted. Jaskier made entirely too many jokes about the little death when they discussed whether they should fake his death as she rode him, and she had to stuff a scarf in his mouth.

It was thrilling, and all the more so when it turned from plan to action.

Jaskier requested permission to bring her to Lettonhove, his family's seat, and when he received it, they were ready.

\--

Yennefer stared at the horse. It nickered and swung its massive head, tail flicking. It was clearly old, with a grey muzzle and sharp bones sticking out wherever she looked.

"You were the one who said no boats," Jaskier reminded her, tossing a saddle over the back of his own horse, surprisingly competent as he tacked up. She supposed he must have been raised with them -- despite herself, and how they'd met, she still managed to forget he was noble. It was astonishing, really, how good he was at hiding it. He didn’t lack the ego, but the gravitas; he was thoughtless and used to being served and expected the world to realign to his whims, and all he offered in exchange was a handful of bawdy songs. Right now, she was struggling to remember why she’d decided to hitch her fate to his.

"It has  _ mange _ ," she said. A fly buzzed around the horse's shoulder and its skin rippled.

" _ She _ ," Jaskier said, sliding the bit into his horse's mouth and the bridle over the ears in an easy motion, "is  _ piebald _ and it's not a disease, and she's also the only horse that I could get permission to take. It's not my fault you don't have a horse of your own."

"If you were worth anything, you'd bite him," she told the nag. The horse sniffed her, looking for apples or sugar or whatever it was horses ate.

"Do you know how to tack up, or does the mighty sorceress need my help?" he asked. She strongly considered making a portal and abandoning him.

"Don't be insufferable," she said, and grinning, he threw the saddle pad over the horse's back.

She watched him tack her horse, humming quietly to himself. Jaskier was rarely quiet and, much as she wanted to be annoyed by his constant sound, she wasn't. Or at least not consistently -- despite herself, she found it soothing. It was in Jaskier's best interest to travel with her. Enjoying himself was irrelevant, and yet he was, enough to hum and whistle and sing quietly under his breath. Traveling songs, raunchy songs, romances, all of them upbeat.

When he was finished tacking up her horse, he held the nag steady while she mounted. She looked down on him and his smiling face. "Thank you," she said stiffly. 

\--

Lettenhove was not far, but it was farther than Yennefer had ever ridden before and she quickly discovered that she was no great rider. The nag had shoulder blades like knives and a spine that stuck out sharply, even through the saddle, and she ended each day feeling stiff and sore and bruised, thighs aching. After a week of hard riding, edging around Brokilon and heading ever south, Yennefer fancied that she was learning how to move  _ with _ , instead of  _ against _ , her horse, but still. She missed carriages. And portals, she was rethinking the portals -- yes, they tired her, and yes, it was hard to take another through, but how much worse could it be than smelling of horse constantly?

She'd quickly gone from finding Jaskier's good cheer flattering to finding it obnoxious, and she spent the long days thinking of what she would do once they reached a city. Baths and jewelry and dances and -- well, she would figure out how to keep herself busy once she got there. There was no point leaving one boring place to be bored in another, so she wouldn't  _ be _ bored.

She'd never been to Novigrad. Certainly there would be something there to occupy her.

\--

The horses noticed before she did, busy as she was mocking the meter of Jaskier's new poem. It was absolutely about her, though he kept protesting that it wasn't, and he was blushing as he denied it. That was no excuse; she was the mage here, the protector. She should have been paying attention.

Her nag, who had always been nervous, reared, throwing her. She landed poorly, flat on her back, all the wind knocked out of her, and finally saw it; a monster shaped like a scorpion, the size of a large dog scuttling towards them, faster than seemed possible. Jaskier, whose horse was better trained and was only rolling its eyes nervously, said, "Hold on, I'll go fetch Nelly for you," and turned his horse to do so.

Her mouth was dry with fear. "Jaskier," she croaked, flinging up a hand to arrest the monster in its steps. " _ Look _ ."

His horse broke, rearing and kicking, fully panicked by the sudden fizz of magic. She could barely hold the scorpion in its tracks. A thing of pure magic, and the caster almost as powerful as her. Swearing, Jaskier let his horse buck him off, rolling as he landed, and pulling Yennefer to her feet as soon as he was on his own.

"Let’s go, let’s go, let’s  _ go _ ," he said, as her magic wavered and the scorpion's tail began to crack through the invisible barrier.

She threw out her other hand, opening a portal to she knew not where, and Jaskier pulled her through it.

They landed in a thick forest, the air so humid she could hardly breathe. Or perhaps that was the fear.

They'd barely made it five steps before the scorpion appeared behind them. This time, Yennefer could see its summoner. He was the sort of mage that hadn't come through Aretuza. The Brotherhood had no hand in shaping him. If she weren't so terrified, she'd be jealous. As it was, she flung up another portal, shoved Jaskier through it before her and snapped it closed on her heels.

And from fire to fire they went, landing in the midst of a battle between man and beast, though no beast Yennefer had ever seen.

The beast had a mouth like a leech, but the stature of a bear, skin gray and rippling and moist, though ankle deep in swamp mud the moistness did not particularly stand out. It was the only one not startled by their arrival, throwing itself, teeth first, at the man, whose block came late. Sparks flew as teeth scraped against sword, and Jaskier yelped, tried to throw himself back through the closed portal, choosing one monster over another. The portal was gone, and he landed in the mud.

"Yennefer!" he said, voice seesawing high with terror. "Do some sorcery or something!"

Her first inclination was to open another portal and drag Jaskier through it by his hair if she had to, but their arrival had thrown off the man, and he was having trouble regaining the advantage. Yennefer didn't waste much energy on feelings like guilt, but if her carelessness led to a death, she wouldn't be proud, either. And besides -- a man who fought a beast like that could surely fight another.

She twisted the water out of the mud around the monster's feet, rooting it to the ground for long enough that the man could recover his balance. He sank his blade deep into the creature's guts and pulled up, spilling blood and acid, and yelled, "Get  _ back _ ."

Yennefer scrambled to do so, Jaskier close behind, the man bringing up the rear, and the creature, with a malignant whine, popped. Or perhaps exploded -- acid and chunks of grayish flesh landed in a wide radius, and everywhere it touched, it sizzled.

Yennefer stared at the remains of the monster, then looked up at the man, who was storming towards them. She heard Jaskier fussing behind her, wiping mud off his pretty silks, she assumed, but her attention was fully on the man. He was tall, broad, armored in worn black leather, his sword naked in his hand, white hair matted with mud, and yellow eyes narrowed with suspicion or fury.

A witcher. Interest frissoned through her. She'd never met a witcher before.

"What," he said, carefully controlled for all his anger, "were you  _ thinking?" _

The other sorcerer's portal opened behind him, the scorpion beast coming through in a furious rush of too many legs. "I hire you, witcher!" she snapped, ignoring his question and slowed the beast's lunge as it leapt towards his back. Without question or hesitation, the witcher slew it with the same ease he'd killed the first monster. Then he advanced on the assassin.

The creature had weighted the scales unfairly. Magic to magic, Yennefer could have done many things to him. The portals had taken all urge towards showiness out of her, and she snapped a blood vessel in his brain with a flick of her hand. He collapsed before the witcher reached him and the witcher turned on her, eyes narrowed and suspicious. Despite that, he had helped them, and Yennefer couldn't help but think him foolish for it. He had no idea who they were, or why they were pursued.

Wiping his blade on the assassin's back, the witcher said, "Three hundred crowns."

" _ That _ was not worth three hundred crowns," Yennefer said.

"You value your life low, then," the witcher said, standing and sliding his blade away before he approached her.

"I value my skills highly," she corrected. "Even Jaskier could have slain the monster while I held it."

Jaskier, behind her, made a disagreeing noise. The witcher looked over at him, but Yennefer kept her eyes on the witcher. She knew the threat was still before her. "He should have done so, then."

" _ Jaskier _ ," Jaskier said, "is happy to hire skilled workers." He tossed the witcher a purse as he joined them. His fine silks were covered in mud, and three hundred crowns would have covered more than a month of travel. They'd planned to resupply at Lettenhove, and clearly that wasn't going to happen now. Yennefer bit her tongue; before strangers, they had to be united.

The witcher weighed the purse in his palm but had good enough manners not to count it in front of them. Instead he tied it to his belt. "A swamp's a bad place to lose a tail," he said.

Jaskier had shaken off the fear, if not the mud, and spoke with all the blithe arrogance that had first drawn her to him. "Well, we certainly weren't hoping for a swamp. Can you make that a feature of your portal next time? No swamps?"

"I was too focused on 'away from the assassin'," she said dryly. "What do you have that he could have tracked? And you," she said, turning to the witcher as Jaskier started searching through his things, "you could thank me for saving your life."

The witcher snorted. "I had it handled until  _ you _ dropped on top of me." He scowled, turned back to the beast, picked his way over to it without stepping in any of the puddles of acid, and began to saw its head off. "What kind of damn fool portals without a destination, an assassin on their heels?"

Jaskier's chin went up, and his look of courtly disdain came on. "Adventure is the spice of life," he said, so snobbishly that Yennefer would have elbowed him if they didn't have an audience.

"Good way to end up dead," the man said.

"I didn't let my instructors speak to me the way you are, and I certainly respected them more than you," Yennefer said.

"Mages," the man said, shaking his head as he rose, hung the monster's head on a hook in his belt. "Every time I think  _ no one could possibly have that much ego _ and every time, you prove me wrong."

Jaskier, beside her, had a thought, which was always dangerous. That she didn't know what it was, even more so. His body language shifted, his voice too, going sweet and conciliatory. "Witcher," he said, "we thank you, truly, for your efforts. We are, obviously, new to the area. You're clearly collecting a bounty -- guide us to town. We'll make it worth your while."

Yennefer's eyebrows went up, though she didn't contradict him aloud. She had thrown in her lot with him, and so she would follow his lead. At least for the moment; she had enough magic to open another portal if she needed to.

"Not happening," the witcher said.

"You would leave us, stranded in the wilderness?" Jaskier asked, clutching his hands to his chest, so far past overplaying the role he had assigned to himself that Yennefer rolled her eyes and forgot about presenting a united front. As she passed him, yanking her feet out of the sucking mud with each step, she flicked his ear.

"Neither of us owes the other," she said, striding straight up to the witcher and ignoring the acid stench. This close, she could hear his heartbeat, slower than any she'd heard before. "We're agreed on that. Neither of us needs the other. Tell us only where we are, and we will be on our way."

"A bad place for mages," he said, looking down his nose at her. "Your way would best be far."

The North was stippled with countries that forbade magic, but none were very large. "If you think your riddles are charming, they aren't," she told him.

Jaskier sighed heavily and joined them. "How much is the bounty on that thing?" he asked, jerking his head towards the corpse near their feet.

"Bloedzuiger," the witcher said, looking suspiciously at Jaskier. "Hundred crowns."

"I bet I can double that, you lead us to town," Jaskier said. "Would that make it worth your while?" With their three hundred already hanging at his hip, Yennefer fully expected him to say no immediately, but instead he hesitated for longer than she would have thought possible.

"Fine," he gritted out, and whistled, clear and sharp.

A horse trotted towards them, mucky water flying up from its hooves, and the witcher swung himself up into the saddle. "Follow me," he said, and Yennefer glared poison at Jaskier, but did as she was told. She missed her nag already. And all that had been in her saddlebags.

"What," she hissed to Jaskier, "are you  _ thinking?" _

"I'm thinking," Jaskier said, totally at ease, "that I can get a lot of songs out of a witcher, and that a witcher and a sorceress could take down monsters worth much more than a hundred crowns."

The worst thing about Jaskier was that occasionally, and only occasionally, he made more sense than she wanted to admit. "Fine," she said, and turned before she could see him grin at her.

\--

Jaskier failed to get the witcher's name and Yennefer refused to try, so it wasn't until the contract writer saw them coming and, frowning, said, "Geralt, we didn't discuss assistance," that they learned it.

Jaskier stopped in his tracks, Yennefer shoving his shoulder to keep him moving. "Geralt?" he said. "Geralt of Rivia? The Butcher of Blaviken?" The witcher said nothing, but his mouth tightened, visible even from where Yennefer walked at his side. "Oh, you  _ do _ need me, with a reputation like that."

"Don't  _ need _ anyone," Geralt gritted out, and then they were before the farmer who'd hired him.

Jaskier inserted himself smoothly. "Good sir," he said, smooth as Toussaint wine, "we witnessed Geralt's fight against the great beast that you hired him to slay. In fact, he saved our lives, showing tremendous bravery. The beast -- you called it a bloedzuiger? -- the bloedzuiger was near twelve feet tall, with teeth like a thresher. It spat acid, sir -- I must assume it's caused you no end of trouble?"

The farmer stared warily at him. "Aye."

"How many of your village has it killed? How many sheep, how many goats?"

"I don't see why this matters," the farmer said.

"Humor me, good sir!"

"It's killed three men. Ten sheep."

"Of course, we can't place monetary value on a human life, but what is the cost to the village, of ten sheep?"

The farmer didn't even have to think. "Five hundred crowns, in a good year."

"And how many more would the bloedzuiger have killed, had Geralt not slain it? What would it have cost the village?"

"Get on with it," the farmer said, scowling. Years of heavy sun exposure had aged him, and when he scowled, deep lines appeared in his forehead and around his eyes.

Jaskier, in his element, would not be hurried. His tone stayed cajoling, even and almost melodic. He spoke like he sang, so that you wanted to listen to him. Yennefer wouldn't be surprised if his great-grandmother was a siren, except he had none of the killing instinct. "Geralt tells us you agreed on a hundred crowns for the head of the bloedzuiger. Now, of course Geralt understands that a village like yours carries its wealth in livestock, and he's too kind to push--" Geralt snorted, but softly enough that the farmer didn't even glance from Jaskier, "but  _ I _ am rude. I look around, and I see what he has saved you, in grief and money, and I think he deserves no less than the five hundred you would have gotten from those sheep. Of course," he continued on before the farmer could draw breath to yell, "I negotiate not on my own behalf but on Geralt's, and Geralt has a kind heart: two hundred will satisfy him."

"That's twice what we agreed," the farmer said, but Jaskier had worked his own form of magic, had talked his nonsense with such conviction that the listener  _ wanted _ to believe him.

"And so much less than he deserves!" Jaskier said. "Come, I am certain that you value the families he has saved from misery, the livestock he has preserved, at more than a hundred crowns. Two hundred is less than fair, but Geralt will take the difference in the knowledge that no more families will be left bereft, nor bankrupted by the actions of the bloedzuiger."

The farmer frowned at the ground, then huffed sharply. "I can put together a hundred-eighty and give him a free night at the inn."

"We'll meet you there, then," Jaskier said, beaming and shaking the man's hand. When the farmer, muttering, turned to gather the remaining eighty crowns, Jaskier wiped his hand on the chest of his doublet, the only remaining clean part. "And so you see," he said to Geralt out of the corner of his mouth.

Geralt grunted, but he was looking at Jaskier, reevaluating. "Room better come with a bath," he said.

"Oh, and we'll be sharing with you, of course," Jaskier said. "We did just, oh, quintuple your day's earnings."

"No," he said.

"I agree with the witcher," Yennefer said, twitching her skirts and setting off towards the inn. The village was so small it was clearly visible even from the outskirts. "I'm not sharing my bed with a stranger. You're bad enough."

"I don't even snore," Jaskier said mildly, but that was the extent of the protest. "Return us eighty crowns, then, as thanks for my services."

"Will it make you stop talking?" Geralt asked.

"Probably not," Jaskier said. "I like talking."

"I could spell you to silence again," Yennefer said contemplatively.

"You wouldn't," Jaskier said easily. Then, "You  _ wouldn't _ , would you? Yennefer. Yennefer!"

"You can do that?" Geralt said. "Why haven't you?"

Affronted, Jaskier made a noise that sounded like one of the particularly annoying seabirds that had roosted outside her office. Those birds had spent countless hours throwing up fish into the mouths of their young, and Yennefer had seen several generations grow to adulthood outside her window. It was a sound she was intimately familiar with, and it gave her more than a little joy to imagine how Jaskier's face would twist if she told him of the comparison.

"He has his uses," Yennefer said. "Not all men do."

Geralt grunted something that could have been agreement, or acknowledgement that she'd spoken, or simply clearing his throat. Yennefer wasn't certain yet whether he was intriguing or boring, but she found she wanted to know which.

"What are your uses, witcher?" she asked, keeping her tone just this edge of needling.

Apparently it was too close to the edge. He shot her a glance that said he knew what she was doing. "You've heard of witchers before. You know my uses."

"I could be fresh out of Aretuza," she said. "A babe in the woods."

"You're not," Geralt said.

Under his breath, Jaskier added, "Anymore," and she tangled magic around his ankle so he tripped, which was what he deserved for that pun.

"I'm not," she agreed. "Is it true you drink the blood of children?"

Geralt sighed heavily. "I thought he would be the annoying one."

"We take turns," Jaskier said. "So? Is it true? I assume not, but that's mostly because I assume anyone who drinks the blood of children would also sharpen their teeth or something similarly gauche."

"I have as little to do with children as I can," Geralt said. "Eating or interacting."

Yennefer didn't let him see her amusement. "Can I see one of your little spells?  _ Those  _ are what I've heard so much about."

"No," he said.

"No, because we're in the middle of town, or no because you're a spoilsport?" she asked. It was always good to know how far you could push a man, and she intended to push hard.

"I'm a spoilsport," he said dryly.

Yennefer traded a delighted glance with Jaskier and let him take the next round, as Geralt tied his horse up and they ducked into the inn. It was dimly lit inside, and once they were in, the smell of swamp that clung to them was inescapable.

Before Jaskier could speak, Geralt went to the counter. "Two private rooms. Baths in each." The innkeep opened his mouth and Geralt made a small gesture with his hand, the most vivid sign of annoyance she'd seen from him yet. "Before you overcharge me, remember that I just killed the thing that's been driving away all of your income."

The innkeep paused just long enough to confirm that he  _ had _ been about to overcharge. "Two crowns," he said. "Dinner's separate."

"Open a tab," Geralt said. "Headman's covering it. Send up whatever's ready with the bath, I'll order more later."

"For both rooms?" the innkeep asked.

Geralt glanced over his shoulder, and Jaskier nodded quickly. "Yes," he said. "Both rooms."

The innkeep slid two keys across the counter. "Baths will be up, soon as the water's heated."

Geralt snagged the keys easily, tossed one in their vague direction. Yennefer let Jaskier fumble to catch it. "Been a long fucking day," he said. "Don't bother me anymore."

He went back outside. To see to his horse, Yennefer assumed. Jaskier was staring appraisingly at his back. "I like him," he said. "He's got..."

"Very broad shoulders?" Yennefer supplied.

" _ Gravitas _ ," Jaskier said, a bit snippily. "The songs I could write about him. . ."

"You always think so  _ small, _ Jaskier. He could help us find whoever sent the assassin."

Jaskier had to stop and think about that one, going to stroke his chin until he remembered what was on his hands. She was glad -- he'd affected the gesture a few months ago, thinking it made him seem wise, and it dredged up an impulse to secondhand embarrassment she'd thought long dead. "You think there'll be more?" She looked at him until he rolled his eyes. "Yes, fine, there'll be more. So, we hire him with what money we have left -- do you think you can track down whoever sent the assassin?"

"I can do anything. Did you find anything suspicious yet?" she asked and went for the stairs before he could answer, plucking the key from his hand. "I get the first bath."

"Don't soak so long it's not hot anymore," he said, distracted as he began patting at his pockets once more, but she pretended not to hear him. 

\--

The room was decent for a small town inn, though nothing compared to her rooms in Kerack. She supposed this was what she had wanted, as she stripped off her muddy dress and set it out for cleaning. She waited, naked on the bed, wishing for a pipe or a drink or a book. 

When she wandered over to the window, she could see Jaskier washing in the horse trough, and hear him yelping at the cold. The witcher was ignoring him, his horse's tack slung over the same wooden brace that he'd tied the horse to, and was brushing the mare down thoroughly.

She wondered what Jaskier would say to him, whether it would be useful, or something she'd have to undue. She wondered whether he'd found whatever was spelled to track him.

When the maid knocked at the door, she answered it without bothering to pull anything on and the maid blushed deep red and gestured at the tub in her hand. "Your dress will be clean soon," she said, staring at the floor. "Do you need a robe, miss?

"That would be fine," Yennefer said, stepping aside so she could bring the tub in.

When the maid returned with the first pitcher of boiling water, she was carrying a rough cotton robe as well. Yennefer shrugged it on and tied it loosely around her waist, staying out of the way as the maid trekked in and out with pitchers of hot, then cold water. When she was done, the tub filled with steaming water, she brought the food up.

As soon as the maid was gone, Yennefer sank into the tub and began to eat her dinner, letting the hot water soak the day from her muscles. While she'd waited, she'd picked off the few bits of mud that had managed to get past her dress, but the tension of near death and the exhaustion of multiple portals were not so easily discarded. She sank as low as she could, which was not so low as she would have wished, the tub being rather shallower than her want. 

Watching Jaskier prove his worth had made Yennefer feel curiously insecure, though that was a rare feeling for her. She didn't need either of them anymore than Geralt needed her and Jaskier, but being  _ left _ would sting. As she soaked in the tub that Jaskier's quick talking had bought them, she considered leaving them before they could leave her.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been soaking when Jaskier came through the door with no finesse, clearly more than a little drunk, and pulled up a stool to sit next to the tub. Long enough that her fingertips had gone pruny and she'd had to rewarm the water with magic more than once. "Yennefer," he sing-songed, crossing his arms on the edge of the tub and resting the side of his face on them. "Yennefer, we did it."

She flicked water at him, unaccountably fond. She did like him, for all that he was a fool. "I should have aimed."

"Are you kidding?" he said, sitting up and back so he could look her in the face. "You dropped us on the most handsome man I've ever seen. Your aim is  _ impeccable _ ."

She leaned forward. "Are you really going to try to fuck him?"

" _ Obviously _ ," Jaskier said, and then stopped. "I mean, you wouldn't mind, would you?"

Gods bless him, he actually looked worried. As if a few tumbles and running off together gave them any say over each other's hearts. But then she thought about it; the skill with which the witcher had moved, the tension in his jaw. When that tension released, she had no doubt it would be glorious. She wanted to see it, sink her hands in all that chaos. "Only if you don't share," she said, leaning back so the warm water rose once more over her shoulders.

Jaskier grinned at her. "I think I can manage a little generosity."

She smiled back at him, pleased and relaxed. Then she leaned forward to thumb a fleck of mud out of his hair. His washing in the horse trough had not been thorough, it seemed, and he hadn't yet tried to take a real bath. Unless he'd gone to the witcher's room to do so? No, if he'd tried that she had no doubt she would have heard the shouting. "Do you have any idea who was trying to kill you?"

Jaskier blew out a breath. "I don't like the ideas I have."

"Tell me."

"Family," he said. "Disowning me would solve some problems with the succession, create some others. Otherwise, well, I mean..."

"You've broken a lot of hearts?" she said. It was the kindest way she could put it, and she was feeling kind at the moment.

He smiled foolishly at her. "Yennefer," he said, drowsy and fond and unbearably sweet, "I think I'm going to dedicate a song to his arse."

"You've never dedicated anything to me," she teased.

"Not with your  _ name _ . Nothing I've published, anyway," he said. "The things I've written about you, oh, Yen, you would kill me."

"I'll be the judge of that," she said. "Come in here with me."

He scrambled his clothes off, reciting a poem. It was messy, the scansion uncertain, but it was for her. He had written it  _ for her _ . "Those parts of you the world can view," he said, muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head, "want for nothing. But the parts only for me--"

She made a noise, amused, and he kissed her, clambering into the tub with more eagerness than finesse. Water sloshed over the sides and she had to move her legs quickly so he didn't crush them.

"The parts only for _me_ ," he said, hands drifting beneath the water and tweaking at her nipples, rubbing at her slit, "are better still. Milady's flower blooms only at night." His fingers worked at her clit, the pressure at first light, then growing firmer as -- she had to bite his shoulder to keep herself from laughing -- her _flower_ _bloomed_. "And the scent of her petals is enough to break a man's will. I would worship her until first light."

He lifted her into his lap so he could extend his legs, and when he set her down, his cock pressed between their stomachs but he made no move to do anything but rub at her. She reached down to jerk him off and enjoyed the way his eyes fluttered.

"That's quite a promise," she said. "You think you can keep it?"

He mouthed at her neck, hot and wet. "I think I might need help keeping milady sated."

"And you are so nobly willing to seek it," she said, not hiding her smile.

"Very noble," he said, breath coming quick and ragged. "Yennefer, please--"

She mounted him, sloshing more water out of the tub. "How do you picture it going, when we get the witcher in here with us? Will you use that silver tongue on him?"

Jaskier groaned. "Yen--"

She didn't let him gather his thoughts, clenching around him so he moaned, harsh and cut off. "You're such a greedy little thing, aren't you?" she said. "I bet you want us on either side of you. You think he could fuck me through you? You think you could take it?"

"Gods, yes," he said, looking at her with open want. She pressed her hand to the base of his neck, his collarbone, and felt the powerful beat of his heart, fast and steady as his breathing went ragged, their pace getting faster and faster, until he went rigid, slumped with his forehead to her shoulder.

"How should we hire him?" Jaskier asked, fingers working busily to bring her to her own peak.

She bit out each word around her rapidly rising pleasure. "How does one ever hire a witcher? He's unlikely to say no to a j-" her breath trembled and gusted without permission, her muscles tensed, then went loose, "job."

"If you say so," Jaskier said, and Yennefer rose, shedding water, and stepped out of the tub. He relaxed into the water, watching her as she dripped onto the floor. 

"I do," she said, looking through his scattered clothes until she found a strange disk that almost looked like a coin. It was pewter, about the size of her thumbnail, and one side was embossed with a crude raven. She had to search to find the magic in it. Inert, it was nearly imperceptible, though she was sure it had been humming while the assassin pursued them. "Who gave this to you?"

Jaskier shook his head. "I'd never seen it before. It was sewn into the lining of my jacket."

Yennefer hummed an acknowledgment and took the pewter disk with her to sit in front of the fire. She turned her naked back to the banked flames to dry her hair faster and sat cross legged, turning the disk over and over, searching delicately through the weft of the magic.

She got lost in it, working her way down the connecting threads, and was only startled out of her trance when Jaskier reached past her to add a log to the fire. She blinked at him, head aching from the sudden stop, the sudden return to this dark room in this small inn. Her hair was dry, the skin of her back tight with heat, her sitbones aching where they pressed into the hard wood of the floor.

Yennefer licked her lips, swallowed once, trying to draw moisture back to her dry mouth, and Jaskier raised his eyebrows at her. He was dressed and dry. "You back?" he asked. "Don't be gentle with me, Yennefer, which of my family wants me dead?"

She ignored him as she stumbled to her feet, pins and needles rushing through her legs. Now that she was aware of her body, she was aware of just how uncomfortable she was, too hot on her back, too cold on her front, aching and stiff and sore and drained. "Water," she demanded and, complaining only a little, Jaskier pressed a glass into her hand.

She drank it greedily, so eager that she spilled and cool water trickled down her chin, her neck, her chest, until she wiped it off with an irritable hand. 

"I don't know who made it, but the other end is in Lettonhove," she said, when she finished. "It seems we must backtrack."

With a twist of power, she cut the thread that reached from the disk to Lettonhove. There would be no more assassins after them.

\--

They caught him at breakfast. Yennefer sat across from him while Jaskier slid in beside him so there was no quick escape. He glanced between them, tearing off hunks of his bread roll and swiping it through the runny yolk of his egg. "You're in my space," he grunted.

"And so we will remain until you've heard us out," Yennefer said.

Jaskier took over. "As you know, someone is trying to kill me. While I can't imagine why that would be--" Geralt grunted, "I can," but Jaskier ignored him, "it remains a fact. We would like for it to stop being so. What's your rate? Something abominably low, I suspect, but don't worry, I won't let you cheat yourself."

Geralt looked very much like he was thinking about just going through Jaskier to get away, so Yennefer cut in. "I reversed the tracking magic, but if there's another assassin as skilled as the first, I'll have to leave Jaskier to his death, and I'd prefer not to."

" _ Prefer _ ," Jaskier repeated, but waited eagerly for Geralt's response.

Geralt looked between them. "Hundred crown a day."

"Fifty," Yennefer said, "and it'll still make you more in a week than a month's worth of the shit jobs you get in towns like this."

"You forget," he said, pushing his empty plate away from him, "that witchers only kill monsters. Going outside my job description costs extra."

"Fifty  _ is _ the extra," she said. "We'll be paying you to walk, which is not a specialized skillset. How far is it to Lettonhove, anyway?"

"Kerack?" Geralt said, and twisted to look Jaskier up and down, a long enough glance that Jaskier's ears turned faintly pink. "That explains a lot."

"I'm going to choose to take that as a compliment," Jaskier said.

"It wasn't meant as one."

"Insult Jaskier as much as you like," Yennefer said, "but yes or no?" If no, she hadn't done it in a while, but she thought she might be able to take his mind. If they were  _ in _ Lettonhove, it would be worth it, but could she maintain control for as long as it took to get there?

"Fine," Geralt grunted, cutting off her calculations at the root.

\--

It was, it turned out, a fortnight to Lettonhove by foot, which is what they were doing. Jaskier had kept his coin on him, but not all of it, and they didn't have enough to pay the witcher and buy two horses. Not that this cowpat of a town had any horses worth buying.

"What about a portal?" Jaskier asked, as they stared down the road north. "What's the point of traveling with a mage without portals?"

"No portals," Geralt grunted, nudging his mare -- Roach, he'd named his horse  _ Roach --  _ into a walk.

"Taking too many people through a portal is prime condition to lose one," Yennefer said, carefully sounding unbothered by the possibility. "You could end up at the bottom of the sea. It might even be a mistake."

"I'm putting frogs in your dress while you sleep, I hope you know that," Jaskier said.

"Go ahead, I need some for the poison I've been planning for you."

Geralt turned in his saddle. "Are you two  _ children _ ?"

"Why don't you come find out?" Jaskier said, winking. Like much of his flirting, it was made worse by the tone with which he delivered it.

Geralt's eyebrows shot up, and then his face went closed and unreadable. Wordlessly he turned back to face forward and rode in sullen silence for a time.

\--

Their bedrolls had been lost with the horses, their food, and changes of clothes. Yennefer was especially put out by that -- she'd had a magic pocket that carried far more than was visible, but it had been in the saddlebags and now she was not only sleeping on the ground without a bedroll or tent, but she'd lost her books and megascope as well.

And the nights, she discovered, were chill.

She sat next to the fire, trying not to shiver as Geralt cooked something in a little pot and Jaskier hummed a new tune, pacing and chafing his arms. She reached out a hand, pulled some of the warmth of the fire under her skin until the flames guttered and Geralt shot her a look.

"If you kill the fire, this potion will be useless," he said, on the edge of gentle and stern.  _ Gods _ but she wanted to eat him up.

"And what is its use?" she asked. Though she'd never spared witchers much thought before, she found she was fascinated now. All their funny little magics, not quite human and not quite anything else. She understood it and looked down on it, but it intrigued her, and wasn't that what she'd wanted? Something to hold her interest, at least for a little while?

"Cat," he said. "Lets me see in the dark."

"Those yellow eyes of yours aren't enough?"

"Mm. They're better than human, but with Cat, they're better than anything."

"What would happen," she said, rising and circling to crouch next to him, peering into his little pot, which burbled and stank, "if  _ I _ drank one of your little potions?"

He looked at her, thinking. "Humans mostly die. Not a lot of literature on how it affects mages. I don't think you'd enjoy the experience."

"Too bad," she said. "Will you fuck us?"

It was disappointing, how little he reacted. On the other side of the fire, Jaskier sputtered, "I thought we were being  _ subtle,"  _ but Geralt's lips just twitched in what could have been amusement.

"Mixing business and pleasure never ends well," he said.

"You expect this to end well?" She couldn't stop herself from smiling at that. Was he naive? Was he teasing? Oh, but the question was thrilling. "We're going to a wild country, ruled by pirates, with the intent of murdering nobility."

" _ You're _ planning on murdering nobility," Jaskier said. "I still think we can work things out. Most people like me when they meet me! I'm irresistible and charming. I'm sure it's all a big misunderstanding."

"No, they don't," Yennefer said without looking at him. "You're an insufferable prick, and you probably fucked his mother, and  _ besides _ , you're a vengeful little shit. What was it you did that other bard at court again?"

"First of all," said Jaskier, coming to settle on Geralt's other side. Geralt started to look a little tense around the eyes, the way a dog did before it bit. "He deserved it, and it's not like he  _ died _ . He just wished he would."

"He shit himself in front of the queen," Yennefer said and Jaskier grinned.

"He did, didn't he? That was good."

Geralt rolled his shoulders, pushed them both back a couple steps with his forearms. "You can do this elsewhere."

"But, Geralt," Jaskier whined, "you aren't elsewhere."

"More's the pity," Geralt said. "Go away."

"The invitation remains open," Yennefer said, rising gracefully.

\--

"Tell me about yourself, witcher," Yennefer demanded after a few days. Her feet ached and Jaskier had been humming a new tune for long enough that she needed other noise or she would kill him herself, and if she did that she didn't need to go all the way back to Lettonhove to  _ keep _ him from getting murdered. "I've heard such fascinating stories. Is is true they pump you full of poison?"

Geralt grunted and nudged Roach a little faster.

"I could make you tell me," she called and watched his back go rigid. She could, too -- his will was strong, but she'd had time to work her way in from the sides. She could make him do anything she wanted. The idea was appealing, but so too was the idea of his willing surrender. That, perhaps, would be the rarer thing for a man like him, and thus the more valuable.

"They're called mutagens," he said, not looking back, "but poison's close enough. Kills like poison anyway."

She tilted her head. "Did it hurt?" She hoped it had, not sadistically, but because it had hurt to become a sorceress. Yennefer found she wanted the bond of similarity with Geralt. She wanted something that tied them, beyond this trip, and she knew pain first and best.

"Yes," Geralt said. It sounded like stone grinding against stone.

"Well," Jaskier said, sounding deeply uncomfortable, "that's all. . . terrible. How about a song?"

"No," Yennefer said, but he ignored her.

Unfortunately, it was his new song, the one he'd been working out without a lute, the one about the white wolf chasing the hind. It was incredibly unsubtle, even for Jaskier, but he seemed to be very aware of the press of time.

Geralt ignored the lyrics with the same grace he'd rejected her proposition, but Yennefer watched with fascination as the tips of his ears turned red.

\--

After a week, Yennefer's blisters had blisters and she missed the soreness of long days in the saddle. They'd stopped at a stream to refill their water and she sat on a boulder, her shoes off, prodding at the blisters.

"This is all atrociously undignified," she muttered. "I should be in Aedirn, dancing in fields of stars."

Geralt laughed, and when she glared at him he looked surprised. "Wait, you were serious? I haven't known you long, Yennefer, but I already know you'll never be content with dances."

"You're right," she snapped, shoving her shoes back on and starting to stomp away, until her blisters hurt too much and she had to step gingerly. "You don't know me." 

He, without blisters, caught up to her quickly. "Yen, you don't really think you're as easily satisfied as all that?"

"What does it matter to you?" she asked, whirling to face him. He was much taller than her, but so were many people, and if she had to stare up his nose, he had to go cross eyed looking at her. "You're  _ hired help _ , Geralt of Rivia. Your opinion is not necessary."

"But you want me in your bed," he said, and as much as he seemed to want to be calm, his voice was almost as tense as hers. "I can have a cock, but no tongue, is that it?"

"You can lose both, if you keep talking to me like this," she snarled.

"Yennefer," Jaskier said, and she rounded on him, too, but he spoke faster. "Once we see to Lettonhove, the world is ours. We'll have much more than Aedirn."

"What, will you dedicate a song to me? Sing about my snatch and pretend it's a gift?"

"If you keep talking like  _ that _ , it won't be," Jaskier said sullenly, but he'd always buckled too easily in fights, and his face closed off, his shoulders hunched. It was as unsatisfying as kicking a wave, so she turned back to Geralt.

"A week, and you think you know me. Funny that they never mention witcher's  _ egos _ in all those stories."

"You're not as hard to know as you think you are," Geralt said.

Yennefer always prided herself on her cleverness, but her words left her and all that was left was burning fury. She shoved him hard, but Geralt was made of muscle and didn't budge. When she reached for her magic, thinking only of punishment, he caught her wrists. "Yen," he said, curiously gentle, and she kissed him, lunging up to knock their teeth together and bite his lip.

He released her wrists and slipped one large hand around the back of her neck, not restraining but calming, and when she pulled back, panting, he said her name again, his voice something she didn't want to interpret.

She fled, opened a portal and stepped through it and stood, still panting on the shore of a strange beach. It was warm and sandy, the water a bright clear blue nothing like the stormy grays of Kerack's coast, or the waters beneath Aretuza. She didn't know where she was, but that was a comfort. She was alone, finally, not tied to Jaskier's foolish quest. She could have done this at any moment. Why hadn't she?

Yennefer took her shoes off once more and waded into the warm waters. The waves rushed over her knees when they rolled in, and when they rolled out, the sand slid out from beneath her feet. She matched her breathing to the waves until the chaos inside her calmed.

The world was open to her. She could go anywhere she wanted, and she always could have. 

When she returned to Jaskier and Geralt, she carried the scent of the sea with her.

They had stayed where she'd left them, Jaskier pacing, Geralt sharpening his sword, and when she stepped through her portal, Jaskier said, "I told you, Geralt, I told you she'd be back."

"No, you didn't," Geralt said, sliding his sword away. It was the silver one, she saw, the edge ground sharp. "You called her crazy and planned on giving it all up."

"What I meant, obviously, was that I have complete faith in you," Jaskier said, talking with his hands, "and that you are an integral part of my success. Also, if you're portalling again, can we just go straight to Lettonhove? I  _ hate _ walking."

"It builds character, and gods know you need it," Yennefer said. "Well? What are we waiting for?"

\--

That night, Jaskier turned to her before she fell asleep. "How much longer, do you think?"

"Twelve days," she said. "Ten, if you stop complaining so much."

"Oh, I'm the one complaining? Am I the one who ran off to who knows where for two hours as well?"

"I came back," she said. "That's all the apology you get."

Jaskier sighed, exasperated. "I'm  _ nervous _ , Yen."

"Go talk to Geralt, then," she said, rolling over so he was speaking to her back. "I'm not your mother."

He sighed again. "He told me to talk to you. It's astonishing you've both made it as long as you have, given how damned unpleasant you are."

"It says terrible things about your taste, doesn't it?" she asked, amused for the first time today.

"Atrocious," he agreed. "Will you stay through the end?"

Yennefer took a long time to answer. "I won't promise more than that," she said at last.

He laughed, low and quiet. "I know better than to ask! But good, I'd like to be able to rain down hell, if needs must."

"I'm quite good at that," she agreed. "Did you manage to fuck him while I was gone?"

"No," Jaskier sighed. "Not even a kiss, even when I told him it would be only fair. I think he's got some noble idea or something, and might require  _ courtship _ ."

"You courted me," she said, rolling onto her back so she could look at him out of the corner of her eye.

"That's a generous term for what we did." She nudged him in the ribs, but not hard. "Oy, Geralt!" he said, only a modicum louder than they'd been speaking.

Geralt, on the other side of the fire, near growled. " _ What _ ?"

"Do I need to bring you flowers or something? Jewelry?"

There was a long, painful silence. Even in the dark, Yennefer could see Geralt pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "I already told you, I don't mix business and pleasure."

"So when we're done and you're all paid up,  _ then _ you'll let us seduce you?"

"We can revisit the topic then," Geralt said.

"Sounds like a yes to me," Jaskier said triumphantly. "What's your favorite color? Flower?"

"Arenaria," Geralt said immediately. "It's a pain in the ass to find, given how many potions need it."

"Not roses, or something romantic?" Jaskier asked. "All right, fine, arenaria, for your. . . concoctions. Do they taste as foul as they smell?"

"Yes."

"Ooh, tough luck, that," Jaskier said. "Good night, Yennefer, good night, Geralt. Your seduction will resume in the morning."

\--

The rest of the trip was not easier but it was less disruptive. Geralt remained steadfast in his refusal to be seduced, though he cracked a few smiles. The closer they got to Lettonhove, the tenser Jaskier grew, and the tenser Jaskier grew, the more annoying he was, fluttering around and chattering constantly, as if constant speech and movement would prevent the fear from sticking. If she hadn't liked him so much, Yennefer would have killed him herself.

But nothing stopped them on the road, no monsters, no spats, and each day they grew closer to Lettonhove, until finally it was within sight.

If Yennefer had been unimpressed by Kerack the capital, she was doubly unimpressed by Lettonhove. It was a small walled township with a squat little keep, surrounded by fields of cabbage.

"No wonder you're running from your title," she said, staring down at it.

"It's a bit of a shithole, yeah," Jaskier agreed.

"Not getting any prettier as we sit here," Geralt said, nudging Roach down the road to the gate.

"Are we going in through the front gate? We didn't discuss this! What if there's assassins waiting?"

"Don't worry, Jaskier. I'll protect you," Geralt drawled, so condescending that Jaskier was reduced to noises of incoherent rage.

"It's why you wanted us to team up, isn't it?" Yennefer asked, striding behind Roach. "Together we're unstoppable. And you're. . . there."

"I understand tyrants now," Jaskier said. "I would have you both executed in a heartbeat."

"Can't kill us if you're all the way back there!" Yennefer taunted and, swearing, Jaskier followed them.

He was recognized at the gate, of course, dirty and ragged as he was. The guard squinted at them. "Lord Julian, that you?"

Jaskier heaved a sigh. "In the flesh. Is mother home?"

"She's in residence, but she's out for the day. Your cousin and brother are in."

"Are they," Jaskier said. "Well, how 'bout that. I need a bath, Gwyl, and so do my erstwhile companions. When my mother returns, can you let her know I'm here?"

"Certainly, sir," the guard said, and Jaskier strode through the open gate. Yennefer and Geralt traded glances and followed him all the way to his rooms.

They were lovely, if a bit dusty, and in the center of his bed there lay a pewter coin, the twin of the one in Yennefer's pocket.

"Well, that's decisive," Jaskier said, staring at it.

"You're not actually going to take a bath, are you?" Geralt asked, leaning against the door. It was almost casual, except it would slow any intruders. He'd brought his steel sword with him when they'd come in, and the sheath hung loosely from his hand. Yennefer had no doubt he'd be able to draw the sword before an intruder could enter the room.

"You do need one, but it's not really the time," Yennefer added.

Jaskier threw himself face down on the bed. "No, I'm not taking a bath," he said, muffled. He rolled over and held the pewter coin above his face, eyeing it disconsolately. "I was really hoping no one in my family wanted to kill me."

"Families are always a disappointment," Yennefer said. She slid a glance at Geralt, then back to Jaskier's stricken expression, and squared her shoulders. "My father sold me for four bits."

Geralt looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt. "I was given to the witchers, not taken."

Jaskier sat up and looked between them. "Well, that's incredibly awful, both of you. Neither of you have families?"

"I don't," Yennefer said.

Geralt shrugged.

"Hm. And here I am, overblessed with siblings and cousins. We shall have to figure something out."

"Jaskier, we're going to deal with your assassin, and then  _ I'm _ going to kill you for the gall to condescend to me. Give me the coin."

"Gods forbid anyone feel sympathy for you, Lady Bloodlust," Jaskier said, tossing her the coin. "See if I invite you to Yule dinner now."

"Better ensure your own invitation first," Yennefer said, searching the pewter coin for any hint of the caster's identity. "Does any of your extensive family have magic?"

"I smelled some as we came in," Geralt said. "Towards the gardens, I think."

"You can smell magic?" Yennefer asked, pausing in her examination of the coin. "What does it smell like? What do  _ I  _ smell like?"

"Depends on the spell," Geralt said, and rolled his shoulder. He clearly wanted to be in his armor, though Yennefer wasn't certain whether he thought it would come to the kind of blows armor could help with, or if he just wanted another layer between himself and her gaze. "You. . . smell like lilac and. . ."

"Gooseberries," she supplied. "That's not magic, though. Well, not all of it."

"Can you flirt later?" Jaskier complained. "Person who wants to kill me, in this very building, probably, etcetera, etcetera?"

"We will," Yennefer promised, and watched Geralt shift his weight. She wanted his throat in her mouth, her mark on his chest. 

But that was for later. Now it was time to work. She focused on the coin, found it cold and dead, no hint of magic left in it. She tossed it to Geralt. "Can you sniff out its owner, dog?"

"Wolf," he said, an amused slant to his mouth and eyebrows. "I trained in the School of the Wolf. One should always strive for accuracy."

"Chop chop, wolf," Yennefer said.

"Yes, yes," Jaskier said, pacing in front of them. "I'm quite nervous, I think. Are you sure we shouldn't have just pretended he killed me and done whatever we wanted? That sounds like a good plan, why didn't we do that?"

"Take a breath, Jaskier," Geralt advised, and his nostrils flared as he sniffed. "This way," he said, and turned, leading them through the door he'd guarded.

He led them through the hallways, pausing at each crossways and scenting the air, a subtle lift of his head and flare of his nostrils before striding on. They ended in the garden, as he'd first guessed, and Geralt loosened the steel sword in its sheath before he stopped walking.

The man sitting in the garden was perhaps in his early thirties and heavily built. It was the cousin who’d held Jaskier by the ear and presented him to court for the sin of his song. Understanding settled in Yennefer’s mind immediately, and when he saw Jaskier, understanding crossed his face as well. He sighed, shook his head. "I knew it was too easy."

Jaskier stepped forward, looking broken hearted. "Albrecht?  _ You? _ I thought we were friends."

"I like you, coz," Albrecht said, standing from where he'd perched on the edge of the fountain. "But you're a terrible Viscount."

"And I was  _ leaving _ ," Jaskier said, sounding rather put out. "I was already taking myself out of the way."

"And what happens when you need money? When you get arrested, in your travels? Will you promise never to draw on Lettonhove's finances to smooth your own path? Never to dirty Lettonhove's reputation when you fuck the wrong woman, sing one of your little songs about the wrong king?" Albrecht shrugged, closer than he'd been when he started walking, only a few feet from Jaskier. Yennefer felt Geralt tense beside her. "It's out of your nature, coz. I don't blame you for it."

There was a dagger in his hand, and it was headed for Jaskier's belly, faster than she could throw up a spell to stop it. Violence was so  _ fast _ . She would never get used to it.

Geralt threw up his hand and one of his witcher spells came out, a great wave of force throwing Albrecht onto his back as Jaskier staggered, clutching at his stomach. Shouting started on the walls, and then an arrow thunked into Geralt's back with a meaty sound, something she'd never imagined coming from a human. He grunted and did another one of those signs, a bubble of force appearing around him, the magic sharp and vinegary in the air. Yennefer had never been this close to blood before; all the battles she'd taken part in had not been battles but routes, spells cast from the coast line to sink ships at sea.

Yennefer threw up a force field of her own as more arrows whistled down, and they shattered off of it, landing in splinters in a circle twenty feet wide. The arrows stopped after a moment as the yelling on the walls grew louder. Jaskier stumbled back into her as Geralt stalked forward to Albrecht, who was already scrambling to his feet, bloody knife still clutched in his hand.

"He stabbed me, he actually  _ stabbed _ me," Jaskier said, staring down at the blood welling through his fingers. "He fucking -- you're a terrible cousin, and I've never liked you!" he yelled, then drew in a sharp hissing breath. "It  _ hurts _ ."

Yennefer covered his hand with her own. Healing magic had never been her forte, but she could manage it. Better, perhaps, if she did not also have to keep them from getting shot full of holes.

When she looked back up from Jaskier, Geralt was withdrawing his sword from Albrecht's throat. He stared up at the guards on the walls contemplatively, like he was thinking about how best to take them down before Jaskier called out, "Stand down! I am  _ still _ Viscount here, and you will stand down!"

The guards on the walls lowered their bows. The guards racing towards the gardens slowed and then halted, reluctantly sheathing their blades. One of them, a feather on his helmet perhaps indicating he was the captain, drew forward until he reached the shimmering edge of her shield and could go no further. "Sir?" he said. "Oh, shit, you're bleeding."

" _ Yes, _ I'm bleeding,  _ I  _ don't try to kill family for the fun of it. Oh, gods. Um." Jaskier looked desperately at Yennefer.

"He was a traitor," she said, dropping her shield but keeping it at the ready, in case anyone got any ideas. "Put his body in the cellar, you can decide what to do with it later. Send word to the king, call the Viscountess home, and for gods' sake, get out of my way, I need to heal him." She glanced at Geralt, the arrow lodged against his shoulder blade sticking out like the quill of a porcupine. "Both of them," she corrected.

She began to walk back the way they'd come, aiming for Jaskier's room, arm around Jaskier's waist. After a moment, Geralt followed. The captain watched her for a moment, then called out to his men, and a flurry of movement sprang up behind them.

\--

Jaskier lay on his back on one side of his bed, Geralt on his stomach on the other.

"What's the use of all that big scary armor if it's sitting in your saddlebags?" Yennefer asked, eyeing said arrow. 

"Like to look good sometimes," Geralt said. He sounded totally, obnoxiously at ease.

"I should leave that in you," she said, and he turned his head, smiled at her. She scowled back at him, but when he turned his face back away she drew a shaking hand over her own face, only remembering Jaskier's blood after. "Shit," she murmured. 

Yennefer drew a deep breath. "This will hurt," she said. "Not because it has to, but because I think you could have avoided that arrow and you deserve what you get."

"Fair enough," he said, and she pressed her hands to the muscle, fingers in a triangle around where the shaft disappeared into his flesh.

She let her magic melt into him, starting to knit the muscle so it pushed the arrow up and out until the arrow tipped over and fell across his back. He hadn't flinched or whined throughout and so she made sure that her hands didn't shake when she picked it up, twirled it so that drops of blood splattered on Geralt's shirt and the blankets on the bed. "A souvenir," she said. 

"If I kept everything that ended up inside me I'd have a pack like a traveling merchant," he said and yawned.

"I'm sorry, am I boring you?" she asked.

"Healing tires me," he said. "Tend to Jaskier."

"Yes," said Jaskier, his face white, his blood red, "tend to me."

"I already fixed your bowels, you baby," she said, shifting over on the bed to lean over him and check on the process of the healing magic. She'd packed it tight to work passively as she dealt with Geralt, and it had been doing its steady job. "Do you want me to leave a scar, so you can brag about how brave you are? I hear women love scars."

"Not in my experience," Geralt murmured into his folded arms.

"Would it make me look more dashing?" Jaskier asked.

"It wouldn't make you look  _ less _ dashing," she said. "But nothing could."

"She takes me to bed to finish the job," Jaskier sighed. "Not the death I hoped for."

She sped the healing a touch, so that the wound grew shallower and shallower as she watched, until it was a raised pink scar. "I'll sit on your face if it'll shut you up."

"Appealing as that sounds," Jaskier said, and yawned so widely his jaw cracked, "Geralt is right. I'm tired."

Yennefer lay back between them. It was only a moment before Geralt's arm snaked across her middle and Jaskier turned to rest his face on her shoulder. "We did it," she said, satisfied. "Jaskier, you get to figure out your new heir by yourself."

He groaned into her shoulder. "My mother is acting regent, she can be my heir, too."

"Your poor mother," Yennefer said.

"Oh, she loves it," Jaskier said. "Otherwise, she wouldn't have married into the family. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised to find her behind it all. She finds being regent agrees with her greatly."

There was nothing to say to that, or at least nothing Yennefer cared to, and Geralt seemed to have already fallen asleep, so they stayed there in silence for a moment, Yennefer enjoying the warmth and weight of the men at her sides, until Jaskier yawned once more and said, "Hey, Geralt, the business is over. Can we seduce you now?"

Geralt made a sleepy, complaining noise, then propped himself up on one elbow and leaned over Yennefer to kiss Jaskier. His hair tickled her nose and she wound a hand in it, pressed her lips to the hinge of his jaw. When he was finished kissing the words out of Jaskier's mouth, he turned to her, and this kiss was gentler by far than the one she had initiated two weeks ago.

When he returned to his spot on the bed he said, "I'm easy for good food and wine."

"I can work with that," Jaskier said, sounding not quite stunned.

  
  
  


+

Jaskier brought them the news like it was some sort of gift. "There's a massive monster in Cintra," he said. "Destroying towns left and right."

"Why do you look so pleased?" Geralt asked, pulling his pants on.

"Because, Geralt, it's the perfect job for a witcher and sorceress team,  _ and _ it'll give me some wonderful material. Come on, the Queen of Cintra herself is offering a contract, you can't turn it down."

"Mm." Geralt glanced at Yennefer and she shrugged. "All right."

" _ Yes _ ," Jaskier said. "Oh, this is wonderful, we'll be  _ made _ after this." He flung himself down on the new bed between Yennefer and Geralt. "You may worship me," he said airily, and Yennefer stole his voice. 

Geralt watched Jaskier's mouth move for a moment before he braced his forearm across Jaskier's shoulders, shoving him firmly against the bed, and leaned down to suck a dark hickey onto the side of Jaskier's throat. Jaskier's mouth dropped open and he made small breathy noises, the most he could manage, silenced as he was.

Yennefer grinned and reached down to palm his rapidly growing erection as Geralt opened Jaskier's shirt and continued down his chest, bruises blooming in his wake.When he reached Jaskier's waistband, she pushed Geralt over onto his back.

When he raised an eyebrow at her, she said, "Let him suffer," and laughed as Jaskier complained soundlessly. She crawled over Geralt until she straddled his face, glad she hadn't had a chance to get dressed. Geralt brought his mouth up to meet her.

He moaned into her, and she glanced over her shoulder, saw Jaskier filling his mouth with something other than words, for once. It was a stimulating sight, Jaskier's head bobbing up and down, his pale hand braced on Geralt's dark trousers. And then Geralt grasped her arse and drew her down more firmly to his mouth and she stopped paying attention to anything but Geralt's tongue against her.

A monster in Cintra, and these men beside her. There were worse things she could be doing with her time.

\--

They set out early the next morning, the rising sun painting the cabbage fields into something approaching beauty.

His voice returned, and a spare lute found, Jaskier was singing quietly, a traveling song, and a pretty one. Their new horses were well fed and strong and their pace was leisurely. There were no assassins at their backs, and likely many surprises ahead of them.

Yennefer looked forward and was not bored.

**Author's Note:**

> Jaskier's poem to Yennefer is a highly bastardized version of [this](http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/69) Shakespeare sonnet. _Highly_ bastardized. Apologies to the Bard.


End file.
